Potential for Orogastric Tube Attached Transesophageal Echocardiography to Improve Intraoperative Image Quality

Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) has been used clinically for decades1 and is now a standard intraoperative diagnostic technique for cardiac and noncardiac surgeries.2 –6 As TEE plays a major role in quantitative and qualitative evaluations of the heart, accurate assessment is critical.7,8 Despite remarkable progress in spatial resolution and postprocessing,9–14 image quality for TEE requires improvement for assistance with transmitting ultrasound.15–17 We d evised an orogastric tube attached TEE probe (OGT-TEE probe) (Fig 1) to allow pinpoint suction and prevent stomach distension during the TEE examination.
Source: Journal of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Anesthesia - Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Tags: Letter to the Editor Source Type: research